Trailer: The Atticus Institute Experiments with Possession

If demonic possession is so passé, how does one make it exciting, or at least intriguing, again? Dress it up like a psychic rage movie. 

Directed by Chris Sparling, who penned Ryan Reynolds’ one man movie Buried, The Atticus Institute looks most unusual—a mock doc with style and a neat conceit, that of attempting to experiment with and weaponize demonic possession. Starring Rya Kihlstedt (Dexter) and William Mapother (Lost), the film has a 70s, medical research, ESP lens, one that hopefully lends a new outlook to the current glut of possession pictures.  

In the film, Dr. Henry West founded The Atticus Institute in the early 1970s to test individuals expressing supernatural abilities – E.S.P., clairvoyance, psychokinesis, etc. Despite witnessing several noteworthy cases, nothing could have prepared Dr. West and his colleagues for Judith Winstead. She outperformed every subject they had ever studied – soon gaining the attention of the U.S. Department of Defense, who subsequently took control of the research facility. The more experiments they conducted on Judith, the clearer it became that her abilities were the manifestation of evil forces within her, prompting the government to take measures to weaponize this force. But they soon discovered there are powers that exist in this world that simply cannot be controlled. Now the details of the inexplicable events that occurred within The Atticus Institute are being made public after remaining classified for nearly forty years.

The Atticus Institute is on Demand, Blu-ray and DVD from Anchor Bay January 20^th. Yahoo! premiered its trailer.